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Gotham Girls Roller Derby

I'd like opinions on some stuff I asked Raff about last night. We were scrimmaging, the pack was tight and fast, and the blocker directly in front of me gave her jammer a two-handed push. In doing so, while leaning forward into the push she kicked backward and tripped me. This is also an issue with a few girls' skating styles. They lean forward (boo!) and kick their legs BACK when they're trying to pick up speed. We all know which girls do it and try not to get behind them in the pace line. But when they do it in the pack ...do you refs consider this tripping?

Tripping is always a tough call. In general I tend to penalize a skater for anything which looks intentional, or which looks to be a by-product of skating out of control. What you describe sounds like the latter.

I don't think our league has a lot of sympathy for the "but that's the way I skate!" defense when it comes to swinging your legs wide or behind you while skating in the pack. But we haven't had a lot of skaters push that boundary yet. We have impressed on skaters that the way they skate when in open territory may not fly when in the pack, and they need to adjust their strides accordingly. I know there are some other leagues out there where this has been more of an urgent issue.

We usually wind up with one or two tripping fouls per bout, almost always due to someone a little out of control and crashing into someone's legs. Kicks with the skates aren't very popular in GGRD.

From a rules committee perspective, repeated tripping as a result of skating style should be called as tripping. As Hambone said, it's hard to judge intent, but I've heard that there are some skaters who intentionally trip using their skating style as an excuse.